Standard zoom lenses
The far-from-humble standard zoom is the perfect option for shooting a variety of landscapes
once you’ve been seduced by the impact of using wide-angle or telephoto lenses for your landscapes, it’s easy to overlook the versatility and creativity offered by the humble standard zoom lens. But with a focal length ranging from moderate wide-angle to short telephoto, it’s a great lens for shooting many landscapes.
At the widest setting of 24mm on FX (or 18mm on DX), these lenses offer a great focal length for capturing the wider view of a landscape, without the background elements of the scene becoming too small in the frame. Even so, they are wide enough to make use of foreground details in a similar way to ultra wide-angle lenses.
At focal lengths around 50mm on FX or 35mm on DX you will be shooting at distances that give a more ‘natural’ looking perspective, as they give a similar view to how your eye sees the scene. Then the longer focal lengths are perfect for isolating individual areas or elements in the landscape.
When you are shooting seascapes or mountains, there are other practical reasons why it’s not always possible to use ultra-wide lenses. Large waves breaking on the shore will make it impossible to get close to the action safely, so the longer focal lengths of a standard zoom will be the better option. When there are mountains in the background, using a wide lens and getting close to the foreground can make them much smaller and less majestic than they appear to your eyes. So taking a few steps back and using a longer focal length can help to make them appear much larger compared to the foreground.
utilize what you have
Just like any lens, standard zooms will give the sharpest results at one of the mid-range apertures, such as f/8 or f/11. This optimum aperture is determined by the optical design of the lens, and also the physical effects of diffraction at narrower apertures. Unfortunately, these optimum apertures aren’t always suitable for keeping the whole scene sharp if you are shooting elements close to the camera, so you will often need to use narrower apertures to give you adequate depth of field. Even so, you should always use the widest aperture that will give the required depth of field, such as f/16, rather than going all the way down to f/22 or f/32, if you can.